


eat your heart out over me.

by iamleavingthisfandom



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Ask The Demons In My Head, Dark Magic, Dark!Merlin, Hurt No Comfort, Other, Why Did I Write This?, dark au, dark!fic, except POSSIBLY aesthetic if you're into that, there is nothing remotely pleasant about this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 07:44:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9225407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamleavingthisfandom/pseuds/iamleavingthisfandom
Summary: Merlin had to get four hearts for a ritual that's supposed to bring him more magical powers. He and Arthur had never met, yet he decided to make the prince his fourth sacrifice, since so many visions are telling him the prince is going to set him on another path. He kidnaps him and puts him under a spell.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Basically, this should have been about Merlin casting a protection spell, using blood magic... *coughs* I still might write that one, but this escalated to being an actual dark!fic without any kind of consent from me, the characters or anyone, actually.
> 
> And I wrote a bit of age difference in there, so. Just roll with it?

He slowly paced around the limp body lying on the improvised altar. His steps were carefully measured, deliberate and calculating as if he were a snake sizing up its opponent and getting ready to attack, still looking for an obviously weak spot. There was a quiet understanding between the bones scattered around the room that the weak spot might have been his and not his victim’s, but this knowledge eluded the sorcerer himself. Instead, he found himself transfixed and less than willing to go through with the next step of the spell.

Although the boy – and Merlin could not bring himself to call the figure anything other than “a boy,” he seemed to be of age, but only just, his adolescence still showing its playfulness on the plane of his face – lay perfectly still and was quite clearly unconscious, life glowed on his tan skin. The wizard did not dare come closer and inspect the face features that were as well as carved out of marble or the expanse of the boy’s abdomen with just enough muscle showing for him to be a subject of worship in the Ancient times. Yet he could not be named a cold and intimidating perfection, his youth evident in the naivety of wrinkles next to his eyes and a non-deliberate expression written across his countenance. Senseless and voiceless, he was not a flame anymore, but rather a faint light, the moth that Merlin was irresistibly attracted to it.

The worry of not being able to continue with what needed to be done shattered Merlin’s very core. Dead silence was not helping by much, and being alone with the single greatest temptation of his life was proving to be more difficult than he ever imagined. It was as if the light from the boy was calling to him, reaching to the corner of his soul that always felt compassion, the calling appealing to his undeniable craving to be considered “good.” The sorcerer approached the boy in barely two steps and yanked his head up by the blond hair, crowned with a garland of thin rose stems, just enough thorns on each one of them. He had picked the roses himself and then destroyed the flowers, carefully weaving the stems to resemble a crown. Using magic for that had not seemed intimate enough somehow. Seeing a droplet of blood running down the blonde’s temple, he laid his head back on the altar with care, as he would do for a brother if he had one. After a moment of hesitation, he kneeled next to the altar, caught the blood with his lips, drinking in the smell and essence of the youngest Pendragon, and revelled in how right it feels. As he pulled away with a delirious grin, the elaborate dagger that had without a doubt been used in rituals at some point in the past glared in the lonely beam of moonlight, unfortunately caught in this sacred place in all the wrong time. Merlin cast a glance at the unmoving body before him and reached for the dagger with his magic. 

Arthur’s pliant body had been half-undressed since Merlin laid him on the altar, but the expanse of the boy’s tan form, the hills of his muscles and defined bones only teased the sorcerer, making him eager to touch, to see more and feel most. Some part of him wanted to wake the boy up, to lift the spell and watch him squirm and beg for mercy, for salvation. Some part wanted to make him scream, in pain or pleasure being nearly irrelevant. However, the raven-haired mage knew perfectly well that he would not have the strength of will to proceed if he woke the boy up. The temptation was overwhelming and he could even feel it tingling on his fingertips with the urge to touch, to make his presence and desire known, to worship and dominate all the same. He did indulge himself, though, and led the dagger to cut up the boy’s breeches, watching them flow silently to the dusty floor. 

As an unobstructed view of Arthur’s body was presented to Merlin, he felt himself falling into a haze. The very invention of clothing seemed offensive if it hid such beauty. The sorcerer could not keep himself from gliding his hands along the smooth skin of the young prince, following the trail of hair down his abdomen, then lightly caressing his thighs and inspecting the muscles covering his stomach with a physician’s attention, his interest, though, being far from purely academic. He allowed himself to run one finger along the boy’s prick, licking his lip. The hesitation started to stir in him again.

Merlin stopped himself abruptly. His long pale fingers closed around the hilt of the dagger, previously instructed with jewels, but now only showing intricately carved indents in the metal. He balanced the dagger on the skin of Arthur’s abdomen, pressing bluntly for a moment. Still mentally tormenting himself for even a moment doubt, he prolonged his own torture, piercing the skin on Arthur’s thigh with the blade. He watched intently as the beads of blood formed where the cut had been made, and hungrily sucked on his own tongue, unable to look away.

Once again he glanced all over Arthur’s limp form. The desire to prove him human, not marble or Venetian glass, was suddenly unquenchable in Merlin’s chest. He ran the tip of his index finger through the syrupy liquid that drop by drop oozed out of the cut he, himself, had created, and lifted it to his face. The wizard examined it curiously and then tentatively tasted the blood on his trembling finger. It resembled metal and did nothing to satisfy Emrys’ inquiry into the humanity of his sacrifice and proposed destiny all in one, neither did the blood, earlier extracted by the thorn. Desperate for answers, he let his tongue gather the crimson molasses before he flicked the tip of his ritual blade. His self-control was not endless, so he closed his eyes, let all the visions of destiny drift away, and set on to perform the ritual. 

With medical precision, Merlin made two deep cuts along the edges of the sternum, trying to separate it from the ribs with the first cut. Blood seeped out of the wounds while he ran the blade through the skin, connecting the cuts. He lifted the skin, running the dagger in the spaces between the ribs and sternum once more, Arthur’s face blissfully ignorant of all that had been happening to the boy’s body. The mage carefully pried away the breastbone and let it fall to the floor with a clang, splashes of blood landing on the royal breeches, discarded earlier. Now he was looking at the whole purpose of all of this: the heart, still beating in the unaware prince’s chest, still young and, without a doubt, chaste. Merlin discarded the dagger to the altar and entangled the precious find in the web of his cold fingers, feeling the life still going through it, still keeping the boy and hope for him alive. Grinning in frenzy, he made a sudden movement and ripped the heart out of the net of blood vessels. Arthur did not even let out a sob, his body just going flaccid, lungs stopping. 

Victorious, the sorcerer raised his treasure to his face. 

“The fourth,” he whispered, his eyes gleaming with dementia. He licked at the blood-covered surface with his tongue and then took a bite of the still slightly alive organ.

The last indulgence he allowed himself was to press his blood-stained lips to Arthur’s unmoving, but still warm lips and his fingers reaching down to run along the prince’s shaft.


End file.
